The Perkuto Martech Mélange: Dangling Carrots

Happy Saturday, Mélange readers! Today, we’ll explore some tasty B2B marketing offers that prospects can’t resist, will learn about the many ways that artificial intelligence is poised to change the digital marketing landscape, will hear what 80% of marketers said concerned them about their martech vendors and will learn tips on identifying (and fixing) leaky lead generation funnels.

Dangling the B2B product marketing carrot

Are you a B2B product marketer that’s looking for ways to sweeten the pot a little for your B2B marketing prospects? Don’t forget the power of a good, old-fashioned “offer.” But since the “free shipping” offers that work so well in the B2C world don’t apply in the business environment, what kinds of offers work instead?

According to Maren Hogan in Business2Community, making tweaks to common B2C offers can turn them into B2B offers that drive action. For example, the time-limited sales that cause QVC shoppers to snap up shoes are effective because they create a sense of urgency that something is available only for a certain time at a certain price. Maren suggests B2B marketing offers that allow your prospects to “Act Now to Lock in 2018 pricing” or that promote an offer for “The first 50 respondents receive a free month” both make use of timing and urgency to spur recipients to make a move. Check out the rest of Maren’s B2B suggestions here.

AI will change the marketing landscape

We’ve all heard the news: Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t coming to marketing, it’s here—from the products we’re using to manage and decode our data to the chatbots we’re deploying to help improve our customer experiences. And according to Jonathan Brown at ClickZ, it’s set to transform the digital marketing landscape in a number of ways.

One example Jonathan cites is AI’s ability to increase online conversion rates. With AI-powered search powering many ecommerce businesses, Jonathan believes that, “brands and retailers can continue to build brand loyalty and trust…by leveraging AI to surface product recommendations and helpful tips to consumers where (and when) they need them the most.” He also describes using AI-powered digital experiences to create their own conversion funnels, highlighting cosmetic giant Olay’s online skin care analysis tool as an example of AI success. For more on the potential power of AI, read the rest of Jonathan’s piece here.

Risky vendors?

Concerned that your martech vendor may be exposing you to risk under the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR? You’re not alone. According to a Demandbase survey reported in MarTech Today, the vast majority (80%) of respondents indicated that they’re worried that the vendors they count on for martech services may be jeopardizing their GDPR compliance. That’s because they realize that they carry equal liability in the case of any data breach.

The survey, which tapped 255 marketers across the globe a month after the GDPR went into effect, found that of marketers who knew about GDPR, only 32% said their companies were fully compliant, and 57% indicated that their top compliance challenge was understanding the law itself. And if your company is one of those in the 57%, Perkuto can help—check our our huge collection of GDPR learning resources and then (shameless plug) take advantage of our GDPR services. Oh, and of course, read the rest of the survey results here.

Fixing leaky lead gen funnels

You know all of those great ebooks, white papers and other PDFs your marketing team works so hard to create? The content that your team uses to help drive interest and generate sales leads? Well, if a prospect can get to that PDF and sidestep your registration by doing a simple Google search, you may have a bit of a leak in your lead generation sales funnel.

Luckily, Janet Driscoll Miller in SearchEngineLand gives good advice on how stop the leaks. First, search for your own site in Google using site:yoursite.com filetype:pdf. Any results that show up here will be results that are being indexed by Google and can show up in search results. Then, using Google Search Console, figure out how big of a problem these “in the wild” PDFs are really causing you, and determine your next best steps. Read Janet’s whole post for all the details.

Alexandre Pelletier

CEO

A serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of digital marketing experience, Alexandre is CEO and cofounder of Perkuto, a marketing consulting firm. A digital marketing thought leader, Alex often speaks at industry conferences including MarketIng Nation Summit, Search Marketing Expo and others. When he’s not helping clients impact revenue, Alex can be found riding his mountain bike, enjoying other outdoor activities and spending time with his four beautiful children.